Considering that Anthrax hadn’t been to the Alamo City in nearly five years and had to scrap gigs in Austin and Dallas last year due to bouts with Covid-19, anyone who prides themselves on the glass being half empty could’ve been excused for holding their collective breath last Friday night.
But really, there was no need to worry that Anthrax’s show would carry on at the newly renamed Boeing Center at Tech Port. The glass was more than half full.
That’s because Anthrax was alive and well. And they had plenty of music to bring along.
Try 40 years’ worth.
Headlining their 40th anniversary tour, Anthrax also brought cohorts Black Label Society and Exodus for a night of thrash and loud guitars to the delight of a nearly packed 3,100 capacity venue.
A video featuring many metal (and some non-metal) luminaries proclaiming their love and admiration for the band not only served as the introduction to Anthrax’s set on the stage’s curtain. It nearly threatened to last as long as Anthrax’s career.
OK, not really. But the lengthy clip merely whet the appetites of the audience that much more for what was to come. And lest anyone begrudge the “I’m Lady Gaga, and I LOVE Anthrax” inclusion, she has a Grammy performance with Metallica on her resume. Not to mention, one of San Antonio’s favorites — Saxon vocalist Biff Byford — has gone on record verifying that she knows the words to “Princess of the Night.”
And with that, Anthrax stormed out of the gates with the title track to 1987’s seminal Among the Living and “Caught In A Mosh.”
The pits didn’t take long to circle, and from there, the hits kept coming with “Madhouse,” “Antisocial” and “I Am the Law” (complete setlist at bottom).
No professional video was allowed, but you can watch ATM’s in-the-pit Facebook Live footage of vocalist Joey Belladonna, guitarists Scott Ian and Jon Donais, bassist Frankie Bello and drummer Charlie Benante in action on the Joe Jackson cover “Got the Time.”
Anthrax played its entire set with the album cover to last year’s XL livestream effort serving as a huge backdrop. That banner in its own right features the covers of each of the band’s records throughout its history that began in 1981.
The one-hour and 20-minue set predictably focused on the Belladonna era of the band, mostly from the ‘80s. Anthrax did break out one John Bush-era song, the first single of his stint with the band in “Only” from 1993.
The unexpected, and arguably most powerful, song of the night was “Keep It In the Family” from 1990’s Persistence of Time. The 7 1/2-minute anti-racism track has always been a personal favorite and remains so, even though Anthrax made the most impactful lyric of the song family friendly on this night. As they do on the livestream album, one verse went from “Don’t even try to tell me what you think is right, when to you blacks are niggers, and Jews are kikes” to “blacks are targets” (and the word Jews wasn’t even mentioned).
Just as surprising, Anthrax only played 11 songs.
Well, 11 1/4 if you count Ian singing the first verse of “Bring the Noise” prior to launching into the evening’s finale “Indians.”
That classic tune prompted this 52-year-old writer to jump into his first mosh pit in a decade but may have given him a false sense of security of being in better shape than he thought, because once the moshing stopped, it felt like his stomach was going to run up through his chest and out of his throat.
But it was oh so worth it. Back to the gym the next day.
The show marked the return of Benante after he had missed a couple of gigs earlier in the tour. And since the band was marking four decades to be proud of, part of that milestone included several interviews with ATM. Click here for a conversation with Benante aboard the 70000 Tons of Metal cruise in 2017, here to watch an ATM chat with Belladonna and Donais in Austin in 2016, here to listen to a funny chat with Bello, Benante again here from the 2015 River City Rockfest, and Ian with his wife Pearl Aday here.
XL (the Roman numeral for 40, if you didn’t know by now) was the theme not only for Anthrax’s milestone, but for the price of the T-shirts that many fans swept up.
But not to be outdone in the merch line, or on stage, were Black Label Society and Exodus.
BLS allowed photographers to shoot their entire performance rather than the standard first three songs that accompanies most concerts, and that rare opportunity came in handy midway through when frontman Zakk Wylde took a break from his frenetic guitar work and perched himself in front of a piano.
The ensuing tribute to Pantera’s late “Dimebag” Darrell Abbott and his drummer brother Vinnie Paul, “In This River,” highlighted BLS’ hour-long showing. It also carried a bit deeper meaning than prior performances of that song given that Wylde, along with Benante, have replaced the Abbott brothers in the reunited Pantera that will headline the Germania Insurance Amphitheater in Austin on Aug. 20 (tickets here).
But there was no time for tears to be shed. Several montages of Wylde partying with Dimebag and Paul took over the big screen, then Wylde and his Doom Crew were back at it.
Bassist John “J.D.” DeServio, fellow guitarist Dario Lorina and original In This Moment drummer Jeff Fabb performed tracks from various albums including Grimmest Hits, Mafia and of course The Blessed Hellride. Personal favorites “Godspeed Hellbound” and “Overlord,” both from 2010’s Order of the Black, were nowhere to be found, however (see setlist in photo gallery). Watch BLS in action on new album opener “Set You Free.”
At many concerts, even of the metal variety, it takes awhile for the crowd to warm up and become active.
Not so when Exodus is setting the table.
The Bay Area thrashers tore into “The Beatings Will Continue (Until Morale Improves” from latest album Persona Non Grata, and fortunately, their set — for an opener — was nearly as long as that title.
Vocalist Steve “Zetro” Souza, guitarists Gary Holt and Lee Altus, bassist Jack Gibson and drummer Tom Hunting then taught the Boeing Center “A Lesson In Violence” and brought along other classics such as the mandatory “Toxic Waltz” and “Strike of the Beast.”
Prior to “Toxic Waltz,” Exodus teased the crowd with the iconic intro to “Raining Blood” as an ode to Holt’s time in Slayer. So allow ATM to indulge in its own tribute to the same by enabling you to watch our interview with Holt and drummer Paul Bostaph from the 2015 Mayhem Festival here.
Like Benante, the show marked a momentous return for Hunting, who has been dealing with stomach cancer. Also like his drumming cohort, Hunting provided ATM with a memorable occurrence aboard 70000 Tons, this one coming on the inaugural voyage in 2011.
The two of us happened to be next to each other in the buffet line on the top deck of the cruise liner when Hunting shared with yours truly that he had recently spoken with Kreator vocalist Mille Petrozza and that the latter had turned down an invitation to play on the cruise because he was skeptical about what the voyage would turn out to be in terms of an experience and/or vacation.
“I guess they’d rather be in 4-degree weather,” Hunting shared about Kreator turning down Miami and Cozumel to remain in Germany. But of course, Kreator has been on a few cruises since then, and in fact will be in S.A. on May 23 headlining the Aztec Theatre with Sepultura and Death Angel.
But that anecdote wasn’t the only memorable run-in with Exodus on the ship. Altus and Holt introduced several of us to the face-rearranging taste of vodka and tobasco sauce.
Although ATM footage of “Toxic Waltz” on this night cannot be shared here, take in Exodus’ performance via Facebook Live clip of “Piranha” and new track “Prescribing Horror.”
The throng at Boeing Center came together, literally, when Exodus initiated their patented wall of death, culminating a scintillating thrashy beginning to the night’s festivities.
Several hours later, by night’s end, Ian informed that same throng that Anthrax plans to spend the majority of the rest of this year working on a new album before touring again in 2024.
All we can say to that is: bring it on. And continue bringing the noise.
ANTHRAX setlist: Among the Living, Caught In A Mosh, Madhouse, Metal Thrashing Mad, Keep It In the Family, Antisocial, I Am the Law, In the End, Only, Got the Time, Bring the Noise/Indians
